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Reuben H. Fleet
A Short Biography
March
6, 1887
Reuben Hollis Fleet is born in Montesano, Washington. Parents are David
& Lillian Fleet. David Fleet is a very prosperous civil engineer
& property owner.
September
21, 1888
Reuben's sister, Lillian Fleet is born.
1893
Losing more than a million dollars in the financial Panic of 1893, David
Fleet is forced to go to Alaska, resuming his work as a civil engineer.
Reuben & Lillian are sent to "Greenmount," a family plantation
in Virginia. Upon their return, Reuben starts a business raising chickens.
1902-1905
Attends Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, which his uncle,
Col. Alexander Frederick Fleet founded after serving in the Confederate
Army. At the time, Culver was considered one of the six most distinguished
private military academies in the country.While at Culver, Reuben becomes
the editor-in-chief of the school paper, the "Vedette" and
also it's business manager, putting the paper on a self-supporting basis.
He also was the captain of the debating team. A solidly built six footer,
Reuben played fullback on the football team as well as the center on
the basketball team.
Colonel Alexander Frederick Fleet
Reuben's uncle, Colonel Alexander Frederick Fleet was the superintendent of Culver Military Academy from 1896 to 1910. He was born in King and Queen County, Va., in 1843. He joined the Confederate army in 1861, serving as a lieutenant and aide-de-camp to Gen. Henry Wise. He was present at Gen. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
1905
Reuben becomes a Christian after attending a religious conference with
some of the best speakers in the country in Lake Geneva, WI.
1906
Reuben becomes a school-teacher in Montesano, Washington. Later that
year, he began working for his father in the timber business.
March
6, 1907 "The Best Security on Earth is the Earth Itself."
Reuben begins a career in Real Estate.
1907
At the same time, he enters the National Guard.
April
29, 1908
Reuben marries Elizabeth Girton
1909
Phyllis Fleet is born.
1910
David Girton Fleet is born.
1911
Sent to San Diego with the National Guard.
1914
After riding in a flying boat out of Seattle, Reuben became an aviation
enthusiast.
1915
Reuben wins election as a Washington State Representative from the 29th
district. Made Chairman of the Military Affairs
Committee of the House. Some colleagues said that if he would fly around
the Capitol building for half an hour, they would support any bill that
he would bring in to help aviation. After "The Daily Olympian"
reported that he had 'taken a spin in a hydro-aeroplane around the flagpole
of the capitol and some of Olympia's other skyscrapers,'
Reuben intorduced a bill to appropriate $250,000 for aviation with the
Washington State National Guard. This is more than the Federal government
had allocated for national aviation.
March
22, 1917 "We are Entitled to no Credit for Doing Our Duty."
Reuben Fleet travels to San Diego, where he becomes a pilot.
July
1917
He graduates as a Junior Military Aviator (JMA) with wings No. 74.
1918
Served as the Executive officer in charge of flying training for the
United States Army.
1918
Becomes a fully qualified Balloon Pilot by accident.
An early Observation Balloon
1918
Graduated from the Gosport Advanced School of Flying Instructors in
England.
May
15, 1918 Airmail
Reuben Fleet organized the first Airplane Mail Service between Washington
and New York.
1919
McCook Field
Reuben Fleet was in charge of the development of new airplanes at the
Army engineering division at McCook Field.
McCook became the first U.S. military aviation research and development center after the country entered WWI, and has been described as "The Force Behind America's Golden Age of Flight."
Wright Patterson AFB
Although not expected to do any test flying, Reuben found it hard to resist climbing into the cockpit of test planes, especially if any equipment for which he had contracted was involved. "to be able to talk intelligently," he said, "and to thoroughly know what I was talking about, I had to get into the air as much as possible."
In 1921, while he was stationed at the Army Engineering Division at McCook Field, he took up a new plane.
"It was," recalls Fleet, "the first American monoplane we had. Shorty Schroeder flew it first; then I decided to try it out.
"When I got up to about 19,000 feet I turned on the oxygen for the first time and took a whiff. It was like the finest swig of liquor that I've ever had. Tasted like a million dollars. It really revivified me wonderfully. Then the oxygen tube blew off and I couldn't fasten it back because of my parachute harness and belt.
"I had already spend about 40 minutes to get that high so I thought, well, I've gone this far - I'll just keep on going, as I wanted to find its absolute altitude. Well, minutes later I woke up spinning over Dayton; my ears were simply bursting. That's what woke me up. I looked at my aneroid barometer and found I had 17,000 feet, so I grabbed the controls and pulled the PW pursuit out of the spin. Then, because my ears hurt so badly, I played around for 40 minutes in that altitude to get the pressure equalized in my ears before I brought it down gradually and landed. The recording aneroids showed I had gotten to about 24,000 feet before I passed out.
1920
"I was too engrossed in business."
Elizabeth & Reuben get a divorce.
November
30, 1922
Joined the Gallaudet Aircraft Corporation as Vice President and General
Manager.
May
29, 1923
Consolidated Aircraft Corporation came into being.
Consolidated began making training airplanes.
TW-3 "Camel" Trainer (20)
PT-1 "Trusty" Trainer (240)
September
22, 1924
Consolidated Aircraft moved to Buffalo, New York.
1925 NY-1 "Husky" Trainer (66)
1928 PT-3 "Trusty" Trainer (177)
NY-2 & NY-3 "Husky" Trainer (133)
PT-3A "Trusty" Trainer (50) Army bought them for $1 each.
1929
Consolidated Aircraft is the largest volume manufacturer of airplanes
in the United States.
September
13, 1929
On Friday the 13th, Reuben and his secretary, Lauretta Lederer, who
he was planning to marry, are in an airplane crash while returning from
a business trip. Lauretta dies and the doctors say that there wasn't
a bone in Reuben's body in the right place.
1931
Reuben marries Dorothy Mitchell. She was married to Reuben during most
of WWII.
Dorothy Mitchell Fleet
February 26, 1934
After losing two previous babies, Preston (Sandy) Fleet is born. Preston
needed a blood transfusion (the donor is his half brother, David).
October
20, 1935
San Diego ceases to be "just another Navy town" and a haven
for retired folks after Consolidated Aircraft is moved there.
Reuben Fleet purchases Lindberg Field for $1,000,000. The site is chosen
because his wife didn't like the idea of those "smelly oil wells"
in Long Beach. San Diego's climate is ideal for the development of the
PBY flying boats.
November
9, 1935
Dorothy Lillian is born in the upstairs bedroom of their house, which
was haunted. After Dorothy is born, the ghosts, apparently fond of babies,
make no further appearance.
Ghosts
in the House
Reuben & Dorothy Fleet lived in a haunted house in San Diego.
There were many unusual occurences such as windows and doors of the house opening in the middle of the night.
The living room downstairs "refused" to be painted. Every night the painters would paint the room and in the morning, the paint would be stripped off. The painters quit after ladders were knocked out from under them.
On one occasion, Dorothy Fleet was taking a bath in the upstairs bathroom when she heard the front door of the house open and slam shut. She then listened to footsteps coming up the stairs and then the bathroom door flew open. She thought it was her husband Reuben, but in fact there was no one there.
1939
Consolidated builds the "Liberator" B-24 bomber. This bomber
was produced in more numbers during WWII than any other U.S. Airplane.
1940
The U.S. Army Air Corps changes it's name to The United States Air Force.
August
28, 1940
Nancy Fleet is born.
1941
"Nothing Short of Right is Right."
Reuben has a giant sign, 720 feet long, painted on the side of his factory,
which reads,
"Nothing Short of Right is Right."
The only word to appear after the first day is "Nothing" and
this causes a great stir in San Diego.
November,
1941
Ten days before Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese, Reuben Fleet
sells the controlling interest to Consolidated.
1941-1945
During the war, Consolidated produced over 18,000 B24 Liberator bombers
and a similar number of PBY flying boats which were instrumental in
winning the war. The "Catalina" PBY flying boats air-tracked
the Bismarck nine days and nights until she was sunk by the British
Fleet, and located the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway. Reuben
Fleet has always maintained that the surprise attack at Pearl harbor
could have been prevented had the PBY's been fulfilling their function
there.
1944
Reuben and Dorothy get a divorce.
May
20, 1947
Reuben marries Eva May VanDenburgh, who has three children: Sally Ann,
Sandra Lee, and Susan Kay.
1961
R. H. Fleet was founder and first president of Aerospace Museum
March
10, 1973
The Space Theater and Hall of Science Center is dedicated.
October
29, 1975
Reuben H. Fleet passes away at the age of 88.
PT-1 "Trusty"
Solving the flat spin problem.
Here are a few more links about R.H.Fleet:
National Aviation Hall of Fame
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